Teachers in the UK must complete a degree and an Initial Teacher Training (ITT) programme to gain Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). Broadly, these programmes train teachers to understand the curriculum, plan, structure and teach lessons, use assessment, and manage behaviour. In addition to teachers' existing knowledge and teaching skills, there is increasing evidence that an understanding of the brain systems and processes involved in learning can assist and influence teachers in developing optimal teaching practices (Brick et al., 2021; Howard-Jones et al., 2020). This is particularly pertinent for those who work with children with Special Educational Needs to better understand their special needs (Thomas et al., 2019). However, there is no formal requirement for teachers to train in this area, and ITT programmes provide very little content related to this (Privitera, 2021; Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2017).

Educational neuroscience is the formal field of research investigating the interplay between neurocognitive systems and processes that underpin learning and educational practice (Feiler & Stabio, 2018). There is evidence that a better understanding of this interplay can help teachers improve teaching practice (Schwartz et al., 2019). If included as part of the curriculum for ITT programmes, it could provide teachers with the knowledge they require to understand the neurocognitive systems and processes involved in learning. This in turn could inform their teaching practice for typically developing children, but also for SEN groups (Papadatou-Pastou et al., 2017). This is important because there is evidence that this current knowledge gap might be leaving teachers less aware of ways they can engage with and understand the research evidence to optimise their teaching. This can result in the application of unscientific teaching methods to their classrooms (Tardif et al., 2015).

Additionally, this lack of understanding might leave them susceptible to belief in ‘neuromyths’ (Arslan et al., 2022; Privitera, 2021). Neuromyths are misconceptions and misunderstandings about the brain and are found to be prevalent and persistent in various educational settings (Torrijos-Muelas et al., 2021), including SEN contexts (Gini et al., 2021; Macdonald et al., 2017). In order to mitigate this, teachers require specific skills to evaluate and digest research evidence to be able to critically evaluate it. Factors influencing teachers’ understanding of educational neuroscience have been examined, but the results are mixed for these factors. This is because studies in the literature generally examine neuromyth and neuro-fact scores separately.

The current research used a novel approach to systematically examine to what degree teachers do and do not understand evidence from educational neuroscience. To achieve this, eighteen neuromyths and eighteen neuro-facts were used, and teachers were asked to rate the likelihood that they were true using a 5-point Likert scale. For each participant, the neuro-fact scores were subtracted from the neuromyths scores, with more positive scores indicating greater differentiation, thus, a greater level of understanding of educational neuroscience. Years of teaching experience and exposure to training in educational neuroscience were measured as the predictors of performance on the questionnaire. There were two main hypotheses: 1) that years of teaching experience would be negatively correlated with teachers’ understanding of educational neuroscience; 2) that exposure to formal educational neuroscience training would be linked to better understating of educational neuroscience. Understanding of educational neuroscience did not correlate with years of teaching experience (r = 0.04, N = 368, p = 0.41). In terms of exposure to educational neuroscience training, teachers who had received formal educational neuroscience training (e.g., university degree), showed better understanding of educational neuroscience compared to those who had received CPD training, read blogs and magazines or received no exposure at all. This finding highlights the benefit of formal educational neuroscience training for teachers in better enabling them to judge the veracity of statements related to the learning sciences. This finding also indicates that informal exposure to educational neuroscience training (e.g., via CPD or from blogs) fails to increase teachers’ ability to discriminate neuromyths from neuro-facts. One likely explanation is that such materials do not require evaluation and review by experts in specific fields (i.e., ‘peer-review’ Lee et al., 2013).

The findings from this study highlight the potential contribution of educational neuroscience training to teachers’ level of understanding evidence, especially SEN-related evidence from educational neuroscience. However, such training should be structured and delivered in a formal fashion, for instance, through ITT programmes.

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